Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for the question. They would be aware that was not in direct quotes. What I was saying yesterday is those opposite need to identify the other ways that this can be afforded. Those opposite, I am very well aware, have got lots of ideas about how to increase taxes, because that is what they are the party of. They are the party of higher taxes, higher spending, higher debt, higher deficit. That is the record. That is their record on every single location. What they failed to do in government when they set out their expenditure years into the future, well beyond the forward estimates, as we know, is to fund those increases in expenditure, and in particular when it comes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme they failed and left an open and empty promise to the people of Australia about how the NDIS would be funded.

We know that the funding gap from 2019-20 rises from $4.1 billion up to, in 2024-25, $6 billion a year. But I note that those opposite said yesterday, 'Oh no, we had this funded by other savings'—unspecified savings. You will not find those savings specified anywhere at all on how that was to be funded. So I ask a question: how the gap was to be funded, not by the Medicare levy or the NDIS levy—

See this speech in context